Originally Posted by
bosman
#2 is quite easy to quantify:
project your 2017 EQD x 1 incremental mile x whatever value you assign to an AA mile
= value of the incremental mile.
Now the upgrade priority benefit is much trickier to quantify. If you expect y% probability as a Plat will go to x% as a Plat+, how many more upgrades will you get and what do you value those at?
Not that I was offered it (only 60k MQM in 2016), but I personally would have a hard time validating ROI on going for the "boost" for anything over $500 or so.
If you do the $9K EQDs to retain Plat Pro, the 9K bonus RDM miles are worth, what around 2 cents each or $180. I'm having a hard time figuring that the upgrades are worth another $1300+, given that I mostly fly international.
But let's do the math. As a plat 75000 miles would get you 24 stickers (at 12.5K miles per four stickers). As a plat upgrading 75000 miles would cost 150 stickers (with zero breakage, so an underestimate). So the gain if your get full upgrades is something like 125+ stickers, at $40 each or around $5000. Or equivalently, if you get upgraded:
Less and 15% of the time (better as plat)
15% of the time no difference between plat and plat pro (24 stickers gets you 12K upgraded miles)
50% of the time (37.5K miles upgraded, e.g., 25K more than you would as plat) is worth about $2500, well more than the cost of plat pro.
Breakeven is somewhere 1/3 upgrades depending on how much they offer you for plat pro.